Adventure and Photography – Passion for the Outdoors

Talkeetna – at the base of Mt.McKinley

Talkeetna, Alaska Talkeetna is a small, rural community in Alaska with a relaxed atmosphere where risk seeking mountain climbers looking to scale North Americas tallest peak, Denali (formerly Mount McKinley), gather. It is also a town for those a bit less risk seeking who wants to go flight seeing, fishing, rafting, dog mushing etc. Adventurers have gathered in Talkeetna for over 100 years.

Off course it started with the discovery of gold in the area in 1906. It didn’t take long for miners and trappers to frequent the area and when the Alaska Railroad decided to locate their district headquarters here in 1916 around 80 people officially settled in Talkeetna.

Downtown Talkeetna is designated a National Historic Site and while walking down Main Street you can still get a feeling of how this small community of miners and trappers must have been back in 1920’s and 1930’s. Many of the old log buildings are preserved and in use today. We stopped by on our way back to Anchorage from our amazing trip to Denali. Talkeetna is not on the Parks Highway, it’s about a 30 km drive from the Parkway.

The three most noticeable historical buildings in downtown Talkeetna is Nagley’s General Store (1921), The Talkeetna Roadhouse (1917) and Fairview Inn (1923).

It was however one of the smaller, log homes that caught my attention – the Ole Dahl Cabin from 1918. Ole Dahl was a railroad surveyor, miner, and trapper and one of the first settlers of Talkeetna. The name is Norwegian so I got curios and had to do some investigation. Turns out Ole immigrated from Norway to the States in 1906, most likely together with his brother Robert. He married one of the local Dena’ina women and they got 5 children. Interesting to think about how it must have been on the long journey and the challenges of settling in a new country back in the beginning of the 1900’s.

In the period 1820 – 1930 around 900.000 Norwegians left the country and many of them immigrated to North America. Population in Norway was growing and there was lack of farmland. Combined with poverty, oppression, a strong class society the promise of adventure and cheap farmland overseas was to good to turn down for many. But it must have been a challenge spending the winter in Alaska in one of these small cabins as well!

If you look at the original National Historic Site application for Talkeetna there is a map identifying the 13 buildings of importance justifying the historical value of the community – the document also has some history around the buildings and their owners.

Unfortunately it was a rainy day when we visited, but we enjoyed this artsy little community anyways. We strolled through the many art and craft galleries and enjoyed great coffee in one of the local coffee shops before we had to hit the road to get to Anchorage before dark. We had a 2.5 hour drive ahead of us, but that is nothing compared to the 19 hours the train from Talkeetna to Anchorage used in 1921!

28 thoughts on “Talkeetna – at the base of Mt.McKinley”

Yes I wish we had better time to explore the area, there are lot of outdoor opportunities so I am sure we would have enjoyed a longer stay there! Any maybe learned some more about the Norwegian settlers – I think some of the children of the first settlers still live in the same community:)
Thanks for stopping by!
xo xo Inger

Inger, Talkeetna is one of our favorite places. Where else can you see small airplanes driving down tree-lined neighborhood streets? The real estate in town actually commands a good price. We definitely have that on our list of places to get back to.

Talkeetna was for sure a charming community, I really enjoyed the rustic feel of it. No wonder the Norwegians decided to settle there. Wish we had better time to explore the areas around Talkeetna – it seems to have endless opportunities for anyone who likes to spend time outdoor! Interesting that you have checked out the real estate pricing, evaluating moving north? 🙂 I would definitely understand why, what a beautiful area.
xo xo Inger

Very interesting story about the history of the place. Rain is always a struggle… I don’t know about how many days of rain do they get during summer usually. You have an idea ? Is it supposed to be rainy ?

As long as the temperature is ok I’ll manage the rain, but definitely more pleasant without rain! 🙂 Not sure how much rain Alaska gets, but I read before our travel that August and September has the highest chance of rain. Travelling earlier in summer would give you less chance of rain, but more tourists! So at least one advantage to going in ‘rainy season’ 🙂 And we did have some really nice days as well, wasn’t all rain:)

Thanks! I would say the log home could be straight out of Norway, it is identical to the old log homes you’d find spread around Norway:) But I saw several of them in Alaska as well so not sure if I could call it Norwegian style:)

Thank you! Yes I did read about the controversy about the naming of Denali/Mt McKinley, but decided to go with the Mt McKinley in the blog post:) I was not aware there was a petition to get the original name back. Thanks for visiting!

It absolutely was, I love these small charming towns:) And the coffee shop was great, super tiny but with excellent coffee! Seemed like the other guests (two of them, not room for more!) were locals enjoying their favourite coffee house in town:)

We didn’t try the food at the Roadhouse, but regret we didn’t! We stopped at one of the other cafes on the main street but was not impressed. But the coffee at conscious coffee was great! And it was nice browsing the local art galleries:) Thanks for stopping by!

I like that name too! My understanding is that is comes from the original local language. I like that too:) It definitely was a small town / village with character. I much prefer small places over big cities:) Thanks for stopping by Indah.

Inger & Tor

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